Ezile Binta
Ticks have a substantial financial impact on livestock production. Strong attacks cause injury, and farmers have lost livestock due to tick-borne disease, which has the effects of scarlet fever, heartwater, anaplasmosis, and colds.
Heartwater is a tick-borne disease caused by ehrlichia ruminantium that affects sheep, goats and cattle.
Ticks prefer warm, moist environments, which is where the virus spreads. When an infected animal dies within a day of being infected, heartwater develops, which is extremely dangerous.
Some animals exhibit symptoms two or more days after being infected with the virus, making treatment difficult if not detected in time.
Symptoms
Infected animals exposed to high temperatures past 39,7°C to 40°C show a high mortality rate.
• Low blood pressure.
• Decreased animal weight and milk and wool production.
• Loss of appetite.
• It causes diseases such as scarlet fever, measles and the common cold.
• Chills, shivers and bends the neck.
• Symptoms of an animal that has died of the disease, you can find water with blood because the virus enters the blood capillaries and travels through the veins.
Treatment
Always have oxytetracyline or doxycycline short acting or long acting and anti-inflammatory drugs to fight heartwater.
You inject the animal three days in a row into the muscle. But I recommend a short acting antibiotic that will quickly reach the problem area.
One Disprin in half a cup of 125 ml water to help reduce the temperature, make it drink it for three days. When the animal is not eating, inject it with vitamin B and give it glucose to give it energy.
Prevention
Immunisation allows the immune system to adapt to the invading virus and be ready to fight the disease.
On the first day, prevent ticks with dip and injection. Do it again after seven days. Then after two weeks. After that repeat every month to prevent ticks.
Animals from another area are separated for a month, restricted four weeks after arrival.